Shortly after the debut of the Movie The Omega Code, a plagiarism Lawsuit
was filed by Sylvia Fleener against Paul, Jan Crouch, their son Matthew and
several associates of TBN. The Lawsuit was scheduled for trial on January
2nd 2002.in the U.S. District Court of Los Angeles. On January 1st 2002 the
Newspaper Orange County Register reported that the Crouches paid an
undisclosed sum to settle the lawsuit out of Court. The plaintiff Sylvia
Fleener agreed with the terms of the settlement and the lawsuit was dropped.

More than a year has passed and the religious media never mentioned a word
concerning the costly cinematographic Misadventure of Mr, Mrs Crouch and
collaborators. A thick veil of Silence has been covering this Settlement, no
one knows how many Million of dollars the Moguls of TBN. paid to avoid a
scandalous trial and a potential defeat in Court. The word transparency
could not be found in Paul and Jan Crouch’s repertoire, they did not inform
their audience about this lawsuit. The Gospel Entrepeneurs did not even
consider themself accountable to their generous Contributors. Until
presently not even their biggest supporters, who have regularly donated huge
amount of money to TBN, were informed that their financial contributions
have been used in the settlement of a 40 Million dollars Lawsuit. Without
providing explanations, not even expressing regrets or apologies, and as if
nothing happened, the Gospel Millionaires conducted business as usual on
TBN. Paul and Jan kept the mind of their followers very busy with
astonishing spiritual revelations, with great power of persuasion they
preached unbelievable tales of new miraculous healing and most importantly
they did not fail to ask for more Donations. Keeping a perfect composure at
all time, and letting absolutely nothing transpire, the Crouches have shown
great talents of accomplished performers, having absolutely nothing to envy
from the best actors of Hollywood. Not a single believer in their audience e
ver suspected that the Gospel Entertainers had troubles with the law. Even
while reading this post, many cannot still believe that Paul and Jan Crouch
were facing charges in a U.S. District Court, accused of violating copyright
laws. To avoid a scandalous trial or prosecution for Plagiarism which is a
Federal Crime, the Management of TBN preferred to settle the matter out of
Court.

Since the beginning Fleener believed that her Novel had all the ingredients
to create a great movie, specially for this reason she forwarded the
Manuscript to the Crouches Many witnesses including employees of TBN could
have testified that Sylvia Fleener had entrusted Paul and Jan with the
manuscript of her novel originally titled The Omega Syndrome. After
reception of the Manuscript nobody from TBN contacted again the Author.
Three years later when Syvia Fleener went to watch the movie The Omega Code
produced by Paul Crouch and his son Matthew, she could not believe her eyes!
In court records Fleener said: “I was literally devastated by the
similarities”. Before filing her Plagiarism lawsuit, Sylvia was a fan of the
Crouches and for many years she regularly contributed money to support TBN.
In complete disbelief she could hardly accept the fact that the religious
Leaders of TBN had actually duped her. This was a great shock for Fleener
who suffers of internal scleroderma. an auto-immune disease that caused her
skin to harden. Afflicted, betrayed and disconcerted Sylvia Fleener said: “I
struggled to understand how this could have been done by those people, who
had convinced me of their ‘Christian’ principles on their broadcasts.” In
spite of her illness she courageously took her case to court, Rebecca Holden
a good friend of Fleener explained, by doing so the plaintiff wanted to
expose the Crouches so people aren’t duped by them. Rebecca also added:
“They’re the ones who give Christians a bad name.”

This is so hypocritical of our Christian Leaders who never fail to point
their fingers at the Sins of Hollywood while they are keeping their eyes and
mouth totally shut in front of blatant wickedness in the Church. The
Hollywood producers are no Saints, however they do not make movies by
transforming copyrighted manuscripts without the acknowledgment of their
authors. Our religious leaders are completely blind and dumb when hard
working Christians are being solicited day and night for donations by Gospel
millionaires and their hard earned money is spent to settle out of court a
40 Million dollars Plagiarism Lawsuit. With great nostalgia Christians are
wishing to see again the days of Righteousness and Holiness of the Early
Church, unfortunately we are left to witness evil days where defrauding and
deceiving believers is a vocation. For ages Christianity has been praying
for the sick, unfortunately with this new breed of “Evangelists”, preying on
the sick and the elderly became a Ministry…

Mt:5:13: Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour,
wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be
cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.

To access the report of the settlement directly from the Orange County
Register web site please click below:

Such is the way of those who violate Jesus’ words by using mammon in church.
The best one can do is consider TBN, CBN, ISPN, and any similar organization
as the personal business of its owner and not a church activity. Then
people are still free to contribute but without any misconceptions.

Of course the fact TBN is the personal business of the Crouch’s and not
“your TBN” as they often say is demonstrated to anyone who wants to
appear — their affiliates may not even help you shoot a pilot show unless
you have several thousands of dollars to spend. (Last I checked it was $10K
per half hour, $15K for a full hour. Recently they claimed $25K an hour.)
And THEY decide if you get on the air, not God, not you as an equal in
Christ, nobody but the Crouch organization decides. So it is truly their
business, not God’s.

They may well be doing a good work and may even please God more often than
not for all I know because their programs constitue the only church life
many are ever exposed to in the flesh. But in the Spirit, there is no need
for money. Does God ask you to pay for answered prayers? Certianly not.
In the true mammon-free church, you can stay home and pray in Christ for the
whole earth and get more people saved and churches started than TBN ever
will. So spend your time with God.